American Airlines has struggled under its current leadership, but new Chief Commercial Officer Nat Pieper offers a rare reason for optimism.
“I’d love to see the executives at Delta and United have to humble themselves a bit.” Preach. Healthy competition makes everyone better. Captured markets make ‘em all worse.
Chicago-based travelers demand more international options, but American Airlines’ strategy of routing its own and partner flights through Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) has pushed customers into the Star Alliance network. There is no reason why Qatar Airways and Cathay Pacific shouldn't operate twice-daily flights from O'Hare (ORD), or why carriers like Starlux and Qantas lack a presence there entirely. Chicago generates more than enough local and connecting traffic to sustain these routes.
In general, DFW is such an unappealing hub for people not in Texas. It's too far out of the way to connect through and way, way too sensitive to weather
Aside from select members of his immediate family, who does Isom have respect from?
"American needs to stop just making all of these little, incremental announcements..." could not agree more. I'd argue AA's biggest PR issue right now is that people aren't aware of the positive changes, or that they're even trying.
Agreed. I flew AA recently long-haul (GRU-MIA) for the first time since 2019, and I was dreading the flight going in because of past experiences. However, I noticed a lot of improvements, and it was actually a very good flight with a competitive and not-so-dreadfull Economy product. Same thing with my domestic AA flights over the past year. The small improvements have been adding up.
I just think it’s so crazy that both AA and UA ripped TVs out only to need to put them back in because screens were always the right answer. Glad someone is finally recognizing that to be premium you need premium features
Why is Philadelphia often forgotten. Dfw, Miami and Charlotte...but no mention of Philadelphia.
I fly American all the time and u cannotbeat.what they do lit of Philadelphia to Europe. A non stop flight to Asia Pacific would be great.
Aww, that’s cute, Philly. Don’t worry, you’re still speshul... I guess that’d be like someone based in Detroit lamenting that they’ve been forgotten (‘we still make some cars, sorta!’) then praising Delta. I mean, it can be ‘a thing,’ but usually those trapped at fortress hubs don’t celebrate it. Stockholm Syndrome? (Oh, and it’s no MTA, but SEPTA’s aight by me, dawg.)
Out of curiosity I looked up Vasu Raja to see what he's been doing since leaving American. According to his LinkedIn he started a company called Dihedral, which is some sort of data company to "help companies move from disconnected data to active "customer orchestration." They strive to "make happier and more valuable customers" which is amusing given the job he did at American. After reading the word salad of a description I don't really have any idea what exactly it is that Dihedral, and Raja, do, but there you go.
The Air Show podcast covered this recently. Raja's new game is monetizing seatback screens since those can be lucrative vehicles to target eyeballs with ads.
Speaking of The Air Show podcast, Cranky Flier just announced that they’ll be interviewing Alaska President Shane Tackett live on September 29. Should be an interesting listen in light of all this AA-AS speculation.
Please, oh please, do not have AA and AS merge. AS has it's own issues and has lost some of it's shine, but having AA take them over would be horrible.
He's a step in the right direction. AA waited too long to understand there is a consumer segment that will pay for a better experience and not just the cheapest price point.
Mr. Pieper presents a nice little four-piece pie (executives of all stripes and seniority like to use pies to draw metaphorical pictures) to describe his areas of focus: Network, Customer Experience, Revenue+Sales, and Loyalty.
Nowhere in that list is Labor, which is a giant area of required improvement, especially front-line facing employees. If he's bundling inflight service (surly, angry flight attendants who don't give a rat's patootie) into "Customer Experience" then he's not fully appreciating the scope of his job and the size of the challenge he's facing. Labor needs to have its own pie slice, perhaps even two.
A first-year analyst at McKinsey needs 10 data points to spot a trend, while a manager can do it with just 5. But a partner at McKinsey only needs one data point to spot a trend.
I believe he is the right person at the right time.
I'm a DFW flyer and UA/AC have stolen some of my business, even willing to funnel through IAH, soooo...
Ben, come on. You know enough about this business to know it is not “too late to save American”.
This is hilarious! A.A.s problem is Isom AND everyone on the Board of Misdirectors. Management is a dictatorship at the place. Thousands of meetings, asking people's input on how to fix something.... anything, and then upper management goes and does whatever they were going to do in the first place. No one Dares tell their boss, no, or that won't work , we tried that already and it failed. So the endless loop continues. Bringing one guy in won't fix anything! Trust Me on this!
Marketing says we need seat back monitors, next year after the retrofits are done, marketing says we don't need seatback monitors, so they are taken out. Marketing says we will give out tablets, then marketing says people being their own, we don't need tablets. Now the pendulum has swung the other way again. This, along with seat pitch, changes, and other things like rebuilding Admirals Clubs that were just rebuilt and many more decision swaps , ALL COST MONEY AND TIME! Back and forth they go. they are a Luxury Airline, no they are a low cost carrier, no they are Both, and yet neither, depending on which Senior Vice President , Manager, or upper Management person you talk to. There must be two dozen or more Senior Vice Presidents, and half that Vice Presidents of this and that.
They are all lost! And the actual Workers whether Pilots, Flight Attendants,Gate agents or Maintenance Workers, the latter used to be primarily in the U.S., but not anymore, all Hate the lost and wandering lack of support and direction by all those above them! That's why the workers aren't "happy". A new "program" every week that's going to fix everything, only they don't, they make jobs more difficult, cumbersome, and anger the workforce.
A.A. management, and Board needs a house cleaning. Then focus on one direction. Fly people where they need to go, with the amenities they want, comfort for the time they have to endure, and at a price point that isn't dumb! Stop pivoting directions every quarter !
Im a flight attendant for American Airlines. Welcome to my "punching bag" world.
You are 100% spot on as to what needs to be done to turn AA around and after reading your post, I believe this is the guy to make it happen! I have been flying AA since the late 90's and have accumulated over 3+ million miles and continue to do so. Of course I have a personal reason, as my late brother came up through the ranks as a pilot and retired out as an international check captain. I have also said for years, as you pointed out, a clean sweep of top management is LONG overdue, or it will never improve.
I'm just a small-time kibitzer here, but remember when AA started going downhill in the '90s, starting with horrible service from telephone to gate agents to FAs. You couldn't escape the condescending, "This is American" attitude. In fairness, they were all grossly underpaid, and management didn't care, touting the prestige of working for America's flagship airline as part of their compensation, which doesn't put food on the table. It was a slow, agonizing slide into unprofitable, miserable overall service. Why America West wanted them in 2005 is anyone's guess, other than the prestige issue. Then, the financial crisis of 2008, making refinancing the huge debt they took on from AA impossible, continuing unhappy labor relations, heads-buried-in-the-sand management (because the Kirby crew could do no wrong), and it was a nightmare that AA still can't wake up from. At this point, I think it would take so much cash to turn them around that I doubt that they can do it. To get on top of your labor dissatisfaction, you need to throw gobs of money at them, which they don't have. They're trying to update their fleet, but that's always slow going, so all in all, I have my doubts.
Ben, Excellent commentary. In addition to Nat Pieper's experience that you listed, he recently ran Oneworld. Having met him, I also agree that in addition to his management skills, he is a nice, caring person.